Method of ultrasonic speckle reduction using wide-band frequency compounding with tissue-generated harmonics
US6827685B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 31, 2002 |
| Grant date | Dec 7, 2004 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Feb 2, 2023 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T2207/30004
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
A method and apparatus for smoothing speckle pattern and increasing contrast resolution in ultrasound images is provided. Compared to other frequency compounding techniques, wide-band harmonic frequency compounding reduces speckle noise without sacrificing the resolution. Compared to spatial compounding, wide-band harmonic frequency compounding is more robust against tissue motion because sequential vectors rather than frames are summed together for compounding. The method and apparatus is implemented by transmitting two or more firings, combining two or more of the firings coherently to extract the tissue-generated harmonic components, detecting the outputs of the coherent sums and detecting one or more firings before coherent sum, and finally combining all detected outputs to form the compounded image. The method and apparatus sums wide-band fundamental and wide-band harmonic images after detection to form a compounded image. Unlike other frequency compounding methods, both transmit and receive signals are wide-band and no narrow-band filters are necessary. Multiple firings with two or more different transmit waveforms are transmitted to each focal zone.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.